Hello everyone, Otto Otterman here!
First, let me say it's great to meet everyone, it's my first announcement here! It is a long one, but we have a lot of work to do, so let's get down to it!
A new update has gone live for Shoppe Keep and we needed to share some key info on this latest update as it brings with it a few changes and lays the groundwork for future features.
First, we have redesigned the back room with just a few tiny additions. The first of which is a boarded up door leading to the outside world.
You all had a brief taste of exploring outside when a bug had entered the game a week ago. And because of this we are looking at ways the player can leave the shoppe with some duties. For example, through this door we will lead to a few things in future updates including:
- A pet breeding ground to manage
- Players personal housing which you can decorate
- The ability to grow more types of items
Note: these three bullet points are not yet in the game, but we are working on them!
The stock room has also received a new decoration, the bust of your dear old grandfather who owned the shoppe before you.
We have also added a physical player model. If you look down you will see…
We have also brought forward a piece content from the development roadmap, the module shoppe. Right now, this means that you are able to upgrade your shoppe in the statistics window in game. This means that you can unlock a larger part of your shoppe and expand fully. This was done to begin work on the AI, which will be mproved upon. But we really needed to work on module shoppe sooner to factor in how AI will move in a larger environment.
Because of the way this new My Shoppe works, it is highly recommended that you delete your old save as it may cause some issues. Unfortunately, this is the demon of Games development as things change, and things get lost, but we really appreciate all of the help you’ve given us in this process.
Check out this image of one side of the shop expanded! There’s still the centre and the other side to expand upon
That leads us to the customers. Currently we have two new commands. Pressing the F key will allow you to interact with the customers via a speech bubble and will show a line of the route they are currently on...
If customers get stuck, press the J key, this will initiate a reset and allow customers to leave the area. With a large amount of customers you may need to press the J key several times. This is mainly implemented to allow players who are unable to save due to customers not leaving the shoppe at the end of the day in My Shoppe mode.
We also have a new broom to unlock in customisation and a couple of new plants to grow!
Finally, we realised a lot of these additions really take into affect on My Shoppe mode so we will be changing how My Shoppe mode works in the future. Let me take some time to explain just a little bit about how this will work.
My Shoppe mode will behave very similar to a freeplay mode where players can build their own shoppe and make money. However, in time the Quest system (Taken from scenarios) will be implemented into the daily task of the shoppe keeper. This means that while playing My Shoppe, you will be able to complete additional quests above and beyond basic maintenance of your shoppe for additional rewards. Essentially, we want the core game to provide players with the flexibility of building anything they like with the added benefit of accepting additional tasks for new rewards. We feel that merging both scenarios with my shoppe will allow for a greater and more exciting personal experience as you can build and maintain your own shoppe instead of being given a designated shoppe layout.
We have unchecked the scenarios for now so that we can focus on the My Shoppe mode. We really want to expand on this and hope you all look forward to a more fluid game experience as the two modes become one.
Most of this update is focused on the upcoming Module shoppe (which was originaly scheduled for October) so this is really a build up to new features and new additions.
A list of all changes for this build are as follows:
ChangeLog 09.02
- You can see yourself when you look down
- Customer AI engine made from scratch (Some bugs may appear, but we got two buttons to squash them out!)
- Pressing F while looking at a customer will initiate a small Chat meaning he will tell you what he is trying to do, and will show a trail of his next destination
- Pressing J will override all customers into rethinking their path, ultimately unsticking them if the code does not unstick them on its own.
- Customers have dialogs ranging from browsing to unhappy, to scared and basic random chat
- Trying to jump is once again talked down on the player, literally talked.
- The shop has unlockable zones which can be unlocked for 10k gold each in the shop statistics window
- A new broom in the customization panel
- You can unlock the outside backroom, but it is a WIP, future place for pet breeding and a personal player house.
- Bust of your grandfather who owned the shop before you in the back room
- Scenarios locked out to adapt to the new shop layout.
- Price changes with 9 and 0 keys.
- Grow Mush and Weed
It’s been a great first couple of weeks, thanks for all the support everyone!